All numbers are worthless without context. If I stated out loud, "I shot 50" with no other information to provide context, the random person who heard this would have no way of knowing what it means. You might think it was a disc golf score, but it could have been a bowling score, or an animal named, 50.
Consider baseball player A who has a batting average of .375 and Player B an average of .400. Which is more impressive? If you know that Player A's .375 is based on 500 at-bats and Player B's .400 is a pitcher with 8 hits out of 20 at-bats, the additional information provides better context.
In the case of Paul's unofficial 1091 rating for a course record -16, those who have followed the par threads know that the par set by the TD may vary from the "true" par calculation. In this case, it's pretty close with the SSA coming in at 66 and the TD par at 68. However, that's enough to say Paul's round was closer to -14. Paul already had to average -8 on this course just to shoot his 1053 rating. So, he would be expected to shoot at least one, two, or even three rounds better than -8 just to tread water.
For additional context, let's look at the
Best Rated rounds for courses in the 66+ SSA category on page 4. His new W.R. Jackson round will end up 3rd or 4th among his Best Ever rounds in this category. So, definitely an impressive round all-time but not unexpected relative to his other top performances on course in this SSA range.
One thing that hasn't been properly accounted for is the difference between open courses with extensive OB that pads the ratings versus almost purely wooded courses like Jackson. In that regard, we could say that Paul's round IS the most impressive so far for "traditional" wooded courses in the 66+ range.
The reason you can't fairly compare extreme ratings of the same value among different course SSA ranges is the same reason you couldn't fairly compare the .375 batting average with the .400 batting average. It's easier to produce a higher number the fewer attempts made. No doubt that the player with the .375 had stretches of 20 at-bats where they had 9, 10 or 11 hits with up to a .550 average snapshot for that period.
But there is a way to compare performances across larger SSA differences and that's to calculate the probability a player would shoot that score relative to their rating at the time. Here's the
Fair Ways to Play document that explains the process and shows how to compare the top performances of a few players including Paul. I don't have the data to calculate where Paul's recent Jackson round fits in but it looks like it needed to be one stroke lower to contend for top honors among his top rounds.
In summary, Ratings are useless like any other numbers if you don't understand their origin and where they fit in context. However, without ratings we wouldn't be able to "easily" do some of these comparative analyses any other way.
